Daughter speaks out in memory of mother slain at bingo hall

Kim Hua Flournoy, front, raised her two children — Kim Flournoy-DiJoseph and Sam Flournoy — as a single mother in Jacksonville after her husband died from a brain aneurysm in 1979. The two children, who both graduated from White Oak High School and went on to successfully complete college, are struggling as adults to come to terms with their mother’s homicide.

Submitted photo

By CHRISTOPHER THOMAS Daily News Staff

Published: Friday, December 20, 2013 at 11:00 AM.

Stern, kind, quiet and playful.

That is how Kim Flournoy-DiJoseph described her mom, Kim Hua Flournoy, who died nearly a year ago after an evening spent enjoying her favorite pastime: bingo.

“She loved it for as long as I can remember,” Flournoy-DiJoseph said. “(As a child) I would go with her and spend time with her. She always had these lucky charms ... a small jade rabbit and a small Pekingese dog that looked like her dog, Ling-Ling.”

That is how Kim Flournoy-DiJoseph described her mom, Kim Hua Flournoy, who died nearly a year ago after an evening spent enjoying her favorite pastime: bingo.

“She loved it for as long as I can remember,” Flournoy-DiJoseph said. “(As a child) I would go with her and spend time with her. She always had these lucky charms ... a small jade rabbit and a small Pekingese dog that looked like her dog, Ling-Ling.”

Flournoy-DiJoseph found out about her mother’s death after a night of celebration with friends and family.

Dec. 30 also is Flournoy-DiJoseph’s birthday.

“I would have been playing air hockey with my son around the time of the shooting,” Flournoy-DiJoseph said. “When I found out about it, I was on my front porch and I saw a Facebook message from my mom’s friend’s daughter telling me to call her. She told me something happened to my mom and I found out later what happened.”

Flournoy-DiJoseph, who is a social worker at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, Va., said her mother was someone who valued family — and that included the people she worked with at the mess hall aboard Camp Lejeune. Flournoy-DiJoseph said although her mother was tough on colleagues, it came from a genuine love, not only of them, but of the Marines.

Flournoy-DiJoseph said she saw that love reciprocated in a ceremony held at the mess hall in her mother’s honor on Tuesday that included a cake, Christmas presents for her son and a Chinese menu to honor Flournoy’s heritage.

“They went all out,” Flournoy-DiJoseph said. “She was someone they respected but could also laugh with.”

Flournoy-DiJoseph said her mother’s toughness and love for the underdog, which she would express through her love of sports, came from an upbringing in Malaysia, where items of want and need were difficult to come by. After marrying a Marine named Samuel, Flournoy came to Jacksonville in 1972 and after several subsequent deployments, the family, which now includes two children — Flournoy-DiJoseph and her brother, Sam — returned to Jacksonville permanently. Flournoy-DiJoseph’s father died of a brain aneurism in 1979 that left her mother to raise her and her brother alone.

Her mother taught her persistence and the importance of being there for others — qualities that serve her job as a social worker, Flournoy-DiJoseph said.

“The loss of our father impacted her ability to be there for us ... she taught me the importance of being a safe person and developing trust and relationships,” Flournoy-DiJoseph said. “She always had a sense of persistence, to survive at all costs.”

Flournoy-DiJoseph said one of the hardest parts of dealing with her mother’s death is explaining it to her 3-year-old son, who she says still has a difficult time wrapping his mind around the reality that his grandmother is gone.

It’s a reminder she has to make over and over again.

“It’s not like telling an adult who will understand what’s going on in two words,” Flournoy-DiJoseph said. “He has to be told a hundred times.”

Another layer of difficulty for Flournoy-DiJoseph came in April, when Larry Forrest, a Marine, was arrested in connection with her mother’s death.

“I felt a lot of betrayal,” Flournoy-DiJoseph said. “With my father being a Marine and as much as (my mother) dedicated to serving the Marine Corps ... a Marine should know better.”

Though the past year has been a difficult one for Flournoy-DiJoseph, she said a support group, made up in part by members of Jacksonville Police Department and the department’s victim advocacy program, have made the path toward healing an easier one.

“(Officers) were like a team pushing a boulder out of the way,” Flournoy-DiJoseph said. “There was a relief after the arrest. It was the end of a chapter; though there are still others to be written.”

Det. Gary Manning of Jacksonville Police Department said that in his 12 years of police work, this has been his hardest case.

JPD spokeswoman Beth Purcell said officers involved with the case “ate, slept and breathed” the case without ceasing.

“The more investigation we did, the more we realized who she was,” Manning said. “It was such a senseless crime.”

Flournoy-DiJoseph said the thing her brother brings up most about the investigation was the community’s outpouring of support and efforts to bring the case to a close.

Though Flournoy-DiJoseph said her upbringing in Jacksonville wasn’t always easy, the death of her mother gave her a new perspective on her hometown, which she once found ‘confining’ as a teenager.

“This made me value my hometown in a way I haven’t before,” Flournoy-DiJoseph said. “I’ve found that confining is an adolescent term for a tight-knit community.”

The two men arrested in connection with Flournoy’s slaying, Forrest and James Edward Williamson, are being held at Onslow County Jail without bond. Forrest is scheduled for a Jan. 21, 2014 court appearance. Williamson is scheduled to appear in court Feb. 11, 2014.

Christopher Thomas is a staff writer at The Daily News. Contact him at 910-219-8473 or Christopher.Thomas@jdnews.com.